1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the fields of automotive engineering and telematics, and concerns in particular an online efficiency evaluation (in particular in relation to fuel consumption, vehicle wear, etc.) for a journey over a route with a vehicle.
2. Prior Art
The use of vehicle models in automotive engineering is known, in particular for the purpose of developing functions and performing vehicle testing. Vehicle models are used in test stands (component or module test stands in the automotive field) or in “hardware-in-the-loop” simulations to simulate vehicle components or open-loop control means which do not actually exist in the test stand. Model-based hardware-in-the-loop simulations are also used to develop and test open-loop control means (such as engine open-loop control means). In this case, the input interface of a control means to be tested may be fed with sensor data from the model. In a closed-loop control, the corresponding reaction of the open-loop control means is fed via the outputs thereof back to the model as feedback data. In vehicle testing, virtual driving manoeuvres, inter alia, may be carried out, in which driving reactions are preset as model input variables. Vehicle-specific internal datasets (such as torque, longitudinal or lateral acceleration) are calculated by the vehicle model and input variables for the test item(s) are generated therefrom. External factors, such as information on the course of the road and friction (dry, wet or icy road surface) may also be entered into the vehicle model as further input variables. With regard to the use of vehicle models in the automotive industry, reference is made for example to the paper “Automatic Report Generation in Model-based Design”, S. Mahapatra, MathWorks, 2010, SAE International.
From the fields of telematics and toll applications, it is known to establish the position of a vehicle in order to be able to carry out further calculations based thereon. The position data may be obtained for example by a GPS sensor.
From the field of “autonomous driving”, it is further known to predictively determine the gear selection of lorries from the sensor data obtained, for the purposes of fuel economy (Predictive Powertrain Control im Mercedes Actros [Predictive powertrain control in Mercedes Actros]. Furthermore, a scoring method is known from Scania.
It is desirable, in particular in respect of fuel economy, to be able to provide information on the efficiency of the driving style during the journey itself. It is a drawback of known automotive electronic systems that it is necessary to provide additional electronic modules on the on-board computer. Since this represents increased expense (costs, time and installation) for drivers, these add-on systems are not widely used in practice. Providing efficiency calculations as additional graphical information incorporated into a graphical depiction of the route has not been possible to date.